


Believe

by Samara_Draven



Category: Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Force Bond, Post Movie, Reylo - Freeform, Snippet, Star Wars - Freeform, The Last Jedi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 16:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13239402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samara_Draven/pseuds/Samara_Draven
Summary: There was more to Rey's sense of Kylo as she escaped Crait.





	Believe

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick snippet I did after seeing The Last Jedi. It's not meant to be terribly intricate or part of anything bigger. It's just something I wanted to get out of my head.

_Safety...._ The door was right there and Rey sprinted for the ramp, exhaling with relief when she reached the top. The chaos of the ruined base around her slowed and muted.

He was there again. Whatever Snoke had done to them persisted even after his death. Rey paused before entering the _Falcon’s_ main area.

_Ben...._

She felt him appraising her mindset. He seemed pleased with what he found.

_You live. Good._

The door of the ship began to close.

_Luke is gone....Because of you, to stop you. He died for nothing._

The ship’s door was nearly closed before his reply drifted into her mind.

_Yet, still you call me Ben...._

The seal took hold with a clang, jarring Rey out of her thoughts and she was alone once again in her own head. A feeling of relief lingered where Kylo had been and it wasn’t her own.

‘ _You live. Good.’_

Slowly Rey sat and gazed sadly at the saber she and Kylo had torn in two. Each half felt different, one bearing the mark of his power and one bearing hers.

A wrinkled hand appeared and took one of the pieces from Rey’s lap.

Leia sat next her, examining the remnants of her brother’s saber. Though Rey felt her sadness, the expression on her face was curious.

“I remember when this was returned to Luke the first time. It was the night Han and I argued about whether or not Ben should train to become a Jedi.”

Leia’s gaze became distant as she looked into the past. “I had asked Luke to assess him and he agreed it was better to take Ben away, to a place with close ties to the Force where it might ease a troubled boy’s mind.”

She snapped back to the present, mouth in a flat line as she stared down at the half of the legendary weapon in her hand. “Maz brought this to us that same night. She said she’d found it and held it for safe keeping until it would be needed again and that the time had come.”

“How did she find it?” Rey asked. A jagged crystal glittered inside the half the general held and when she looked at her half, another sharp edged crystal was nestled there. Looking closely, Rey could see they fit together - two halves of a whole, torn apart.

Leia huffed without humor. “She wouldn’t say. Maz has her ways and trusts no one with them. My brother refused the saber since he had built his own to replace Anakin’s years before. Instead he gave it to Ben.”

At this, Rey’s eyes widened and she stared with new appreciation at the saber. “So...this truly _was_ his.”

Leia nodded. “He was....so proud. Luke took it as a sign of Ben’s destiny to be a Jedi. None of us noticed the hunger in my boy’s eyes the first time he activated it. None of us considered this saber’s past. It’s the weapon Vader used to kill a temple full of younglings, the same blade that cut down an entire Tusken clan...and the one my son used to destroy Luke’s Jedi school.”

The more Leia said, the heavier and more ominous the half in Rey’s lap seemed, even as she considered the silver hued hilt and bright blue blade. It was an elegant weapon embodying everything the Jedi upheld. It didn’t seem like an evil thing.

Leia shuddered and dropped the saber piece next to its mate. “Sometimes I wonder if a thing can sway good people to commit evil deeds.”

A question Rey didn’t comprehend before uttering it spilled forth, “Can you feel it? The pieces feel different to me,” she hurried to explain.

Both women looked down at the saber halves but Leia shook her head. “They feel the same to me, the same evil song that has led astray or killed anyone who has ever wielded it.”

With that she strode away, leaving Rey stunned. Tears welled in her eyes. She wondered if young Ben had a similar experience to her own when she first held the weapon. How might that have affected a child? A flash of misery terrible wet cold and a pale small face hidden by a mop of black curls played in her mind. A cruel rough voice whispered, “ _You’re so weak....wanting the approval of those who think of you as nothing but a nuisance...”_

****

“Hey. Are you okay?”

A hand was on her shoulder and the sights and sounds and warmth of the _Falcon_ rushed back. Rey blinked and wiped at her tears, reeling from how completely lost she had been in her own mind.

Finn watched her with his characteristic concern.

“Yeah.” Suddenly she felt foolish. “I was talking with Leia....it’s just....losing Luke was really hard.”

Finn immediately sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him, grateful for the comfort of his friendship. “I can’t understand what it’s like to feel someone die through the Force, but if you need anything, just say the word.”

Rey nodded into his shoulder.

“He was a great man,” the former storm trooper said with conviction. “He will be missed.”

Rey couldn’t look Finn in the eye. How did you tell everyone who revered Luke Skywalker, the Last Jedi known to exist and an accomplished war hero, that he was just a man? A man who had made mistakes and, in his hubris, made Kylo Ren and then lost him because of fear.....

She shook free of Finn’s hold and stood. Everyone’s gaze was drawn to the motion and they stared at Rey with a strange look, one she imagined she had bestowed upon Luke. The room felt dizzingly claustrophobic and she needed to get out. Chewie was alone in the cockpit when she stepped inside. The view of space and stars calmed her nerves immediately and she sat heavily in the empty co-pilot’s chair.

Bitter sadness and a strange calm swept over her. She nearly reached out to Kylo and demanded he answer for his actions as the successor to the First Order. She couldn’t bring herself to. She knew his reason. When he’d asked her to join him and spoke of bringing order and a new kind of galactic rule, his reasons were plain enough.

She released a gentle breath. _I believed in you...._

Pain flickered in her chest. _Even after all you’ve done, I believed in you._

Something close to desperation gripped her. It was cold and suffocating. _I know....I almost believed in me too._

Rey’s lips pressed together and she breathed.

_Please don’t leave._

She shut her eyes against a flash of panic in her belly.

_You’ve seen everything and still you believed. Luke, your chosen paternal icon, said it was foolish but you came to me anyway. Is your conviction so fickle and easily swayed now?_

Rey swallowed hard. He was baiting her she knew but she couldn’t resist refuting him with the truth.

_I think.....perhaps there will always be a part of me foolish enough to believe in you._

 


End file.
